


feels like christmas (every time i'm with you)

by 99jun



Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Christmas, Domestic Violence, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Getting Back Together, Ice Skating, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28361202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/99jun/pseuds/99jun
Summary: “do you feel loved?”dejun casts his gaze downwards and fidgets with the loose thread on hendery’s quilt absentmindedly. love is one thing, but to feel loved is another. is he in love? he thinks he is— she’s tall, her hair falls nicely past her shoulders, she bats her lashes at dejun flirtatiously. but does he feel loved?“sometimes,” he replies, but only soft enough for hendery to hear.
Relationships: Wong Kun Hang | Hendery/Xiao De Jun | Xiao Jun
Comments: 1
Kudos: 52





	feels like christmas (every time i'm with you)

**Author's Note:**

> hello! merry (belated) christmas, i hope everyone had a great holiday~ this fic has been in the works for some time now, and i've constantly been working on it but now it's finally finished :) good ol christmas fluff sprinkled with angst
> 
> this is written for someone who definitely made my christmas this year a lot better! if you're reading this, i love you and i hope you know that~

The road feels tacky beneath his boots, the lace on his left shoe untied and soaked in the dreggy rainwater. Dejun picks up his pace, shoving his hands into his pockets as he turns a corner and halts in front of an apartment complex. Somewhere a couple blocks away, saccharine festive pop blasts from speakers overhead. End-of-year festivities have never been his thing, so the lights and laughter are nothing more than white noise to him too. 

Dejun shoves the pain radiating from his left cheek as far back in the recesses of his mind as he can, tries to ignore the clean slit in his shirt and the steady stream of warm liquid down his abdomen. A chill blows past and he shivers involuntarily. Drawing in a shaky breath, Dejun carefully treads up the flight of stairs leading to the front door, his bottom lip chewed up out of pain, fear and anxiety. He’s a deadly mix of all three, but Dejun feels like this is the only place he can be— or has to be. Whoever is looking down at him from their window probably thinks he looks like a heartbroken teenager finding a place to crash for the night. But maybe he is, maybe he does need someplace for the night.

Looking up, he sees the unit on the fourth floor faintly glowing yellow in the dark of the night. Dejun’s feet ache down to his bones, and the wound on his abdomen doesn’t look too good either. He’ll fix it on his own, though. He always does, and always has done since he was a child. His head is still pounding from the impact of a certain someone’s palm against his cheek, and his steps are unsteady, but he manages to make his way up to the front door of the apartment.

The front door looks exactly the same as how Dejun had last seen it, save for a few extra scratches. And the kitsch door sign hand-picked out by him months ago still hangs on the front— a t-rex and a unicorn side-by-side. It’s an amalgamation of both boys, and Dejun thought it would have made the perfect housewarming gift for their own apartment. Maybe it is, though; the door sign is still hanging up front after all these months. Which means the other boy still likes the little memento too much to take it down. Or he’d just completely forgotten about its existence on their front door. 

Dejun thinks the latter might be the answer— it’s not a pretty door sign anyway. It’s out-of-place and the two animals on the front certainly don’t go together. Just like how he’d described the both of them that night, fist-to-cheek and palm-to-shoulder in a brawl neither was willing to back down from. Neither of the animals exist anymore, at least not in each other’s worlds, and he thinks it’s laughably similar to the both of them— he never believed in opposites attracting. 

Rapping his knuckles against the polywood gently, Dejun takes a small step back— half-expecting to turn around and head home, half-expecting a taller boy to emerge. Nothing. He doesn’t hear the soft pad of footsteps, doesn’t hear the knob turn. It’s not a surprise, really. Dejun should’ve known coming back to him after —what, four months?— would only lead him to a closed door. 

The dimly-lit LED screen on his wrist watch displays half past one. He’s an early sleeper, of course, how could Dejun forget this? He peeks his head to the side window and notices the same yellow glow emanating from the apartment. The other boy probably forgot to turn the lights off again (It’s a habit he’s kept since Dejun moved in with him, says the light makes sure Dejun doesn’t walk into the kitchen thinking it’s the bathroom again.) Dejun half-contemplates turning on his heel and heading straight back to his apartment an hour away. But before he can step any further away, he hears the doorknob turn. 

“Hey, I’m so sor—” Dejun blurts out when Hendery comes into view. He’s in a black tank top and shorts, his brown hair half-drawn into a mini ponytail. It’s not perfectly done— there are a few strays here and there, but Dejun knows why. Hendery used to let him tie up his hair when it got in the way, Hendery used to let him do everything. So when Dejun sees that Hendery still keeps the habit of doing up his hair into a ponytail, he doesn’t let anyone know that it breaks his heart in so many ways the boy standing across from him would never imagine. 

Dejun expects the door to be slammed in his face by now. Four months ago, he’d done the very same thing to Hendery. Except, it came with a lot more malice and hurt and unintentional words he’d never meant to unleash, and then some. 

Hendery stares at Dejun, wide-eyed with his hand slowly falling from the doorknob to his side. The older can’t tell if it’s a look of shock, or pity, or even hate. He hopes it’s the last one though, he really hopes it is. He hopes Hendery gives him a taste of his own medicine by slamming the very same door in his own face, so he’ll regret ever crawling back to his fucking ex looking for—

“Jun?” Dejun almost feels like crying when the term of endearment rolls off Hendery’s tongue like he’s never stopped saying it. For a moment, the two boys stand across from each other, and Dejun realises that he’s this close to the very same boy he’s been silently praying would somehow slip back into his own life. Hendery eyes Dejun from head to toe, until his face resolves when Dejun slightly falters.

“God,” Hendery reaches out to steady Dejun with a hand firm on his shoulder, but tentatively pulls back when he realises what he’s doing.

“This okay?” Hendery hovers his hand above the older’s shoulder, then replaces his hold with a much gentler one after Dejun nods his head slowly. It’s something largely unspoken, but Hendery has come to learn that touch is something Dejun either leans into or averts completely. Which is why he remembers to ask, even after months of not seeing him. 

The soaking coat is peeled from Dejun’s frame, and if Hendery notices how small he looks now compared to last Christmas, he doesn’t mention it. “I’ll throw this into laundry.” Hendery starts towards the back of the apartment, and Dejun looks around to find everything almost the way he left it. Maybe the floorboards are wiped more regularly, maybe the light streaming in through the windows looks a lot brighter. But beneath the surface, he starts to notice the things which truly remind him that two boys in love once shared this apartment. They laughed and cried and fought and kissed right here in this apartment they called home. 

The pantry is still stocked full of Dejun’s favourite cod fish sticks, the cushions are still arranged by colour on the couch, and he looks down to find a pair of slippers with the initials D.J. embroidered in a not-so-neat fashion. (Hendery had never been one to do the patching up around the house, so when he holds up a pair of slippers for Dejun with his fingers pricked countless times by needles, Dejun falls in love with him even more.)

Dejun wants to ask him why the apartment hasn’t changed one bit, why he still has Dejun’s favourite snack even though he absolutely hates it and would always try to hide it from the older boy. Dejun wants to ask him why the cushions are still arranged by colour when he knows that Hendery never cared about them and always teased Dejun for being too stringent on how things are arranged around the place. Dejun wants to ask him why he didn’t throw his slippers out like how he threw Hendery out from his own life. Dejun wants to ask him why after all these months, nothing has changed.

He finds the questions dying in his throat as Hendery squeezes a dollop of green-tea scented shampoo into one palm and lathers it into Dejun’s hair. He works his way down, to his neck, along his spine and then onto his arms. Hendery notices how Dejun’s body is littered with bruises and cuts and everything else that shouldn’t belong on his body. Hendery tries to avoid the wounds but Dejun shakes his head gently in resignation. 

“It’s okay, they need to be cleaned anyway.” Dejun keeps his head down and looks at the water swirling down the drainhole. 

“But they’ll hurt.”

(I’ve already hurt you enough, Heng. Maybe soap on wounds will hurt just as much as pushing you away.)

“I know.”

“Can I crash for tonight?” Dejun’s question comes out more as a confession. Hendery has already changed him into a set of fresh clothes, and he’s working on tending to the gash on Dejun’s abdomen. The room is heavy with uncertainty and love that’s far away but so close at the same time. Hendery is taking care of him; he’s patching Dejun up and making him feel at home again and showing him a kind of affection he knows can never be replaced by anyone else. 

“You know you’re always welcomed back here.” 

They lie on their backs, on the same bed where the first thing they saw in the morning would be each other’s eyes. Dejun doesn’t bother asking why Hendery still has a second pillow next to his own— he thinks he already knows the answer. There’s a distance between both boys, but for the first time in a long time, Dejun feels his heart settle into a slow jog when he lies next to Hendery. 

“Are you okay?” Hendery asks a question he knows the answer to, but it comes out anyway because he wants Dejun to talk. Or move, or look up at him. He has been non-verbal for the past hour and Hendery is starting to finally let the weight of the situation sink in.

“I- I don’t know…” Dejun pauses, then exhales shakily, a fresh jolt of pain blossoming in his abdomen. He feels a thick bandage wrapped over his midsection, and his mind drifts off to how long he must’ve been out while Hendery slowly patched him up. 

_ “Do you feel loved?” _

Dejun casts his gaze downwards and fidgets with the loose thread on Hendery’s quilt absentmindedly. Love is one thing, but to feel loved is another. Is he in love? He thinks he is— she’s tall, her hair falls nicely past her shoulders, she bats her lashes at Dejun flirtatiously. Does he feel loved?

“Sometimes,” he replies, but only soft enough for Hendery to hear. He thinks about the eight-course dinner she had let him have at a gala she attended last weekend, thinks about the red three piece suit she’d picked out for him hanging in the wardrobe, thinks about all the times she’d made him feel some semblance of happiness. The line between happiness and pain is starting to fade, but he thinks he can save whatever joy he’s felt from their relationship. If he just tides through this pain she’s inflicting on him.

A ping from Dejun’s phone sounds from under the quilt in the dark of the night. Dejun halts like he’s been caught red-handed, and Hendery can feel his fingers tremble from beneath the quilt. He pretends to be asleep, but opens his eye a fraction and watches as Dejun slowly drags his phone from under the quilt and clicks it to life with shaky hands. He looks at the one, lone notification on the screen, drops the phone face-down onto his chest, then lets tears leak from both sides of his face. 

Dejun turns to his side, half-expecting to see Hendery fast asleep and back towards him. Instead, the younger boy sits up slowly, flicks the night lamp on by the bedside and turns back to face Dejun. Hendery knows they’re not tears of joy or relief or rage, even. It’s unadulterated sorrow in its purest form. The older parts his lips ever so slightly, like he wants to talk but the words don’t come out. 

“You can talk to me.” Hendery coaxes Dejun in Cantonese; it’s the first time they’ve used the dialect with each other in a long, long time. The last time they used it was when Hendery laid shoulder-to-shoulder with him on a large, grassy field, asking Dejun to be his boyfriend. They’re once again lying next to each other— things are different now, but going back to one of their fondest love languages makes both of their hearts swell with tenderness.

“I don’t know if it’ll last with her.” 

| | |

“You look really handsome,” Hendery mimes a thumbs-up as Dejun straightens out his suit with his palms. His hair is slightly ruffled, but still neat, and he has a semblance of contentment on his lips. It’s the first time Hendery has seen Dejun with a smile this big, it almost scares him.

_ “Do you feel loved?”  _ Hendery suddenly speaks up, one hand in Dejun’s hair and another clutching a can of hairspray. He watches as the smile fades quickly, but it’s followed by a light punch in Hendery’s side and a hearty chuckle. 

“I will be, if you fix this tie for me. Which colour do you think she’d like?” Dejun pulls out an eccentric christmas-themed tie, dotted with candy canes and reindeers. “It’s the tie you got me two Christmases ago, remember?” Dejun lightly nudges Hendery when he realises the younger has gone silent.

“Yeah, yeah it is.” Hendery flashes Dejun a saccharine smile. It’s almost Christmas, Dejun is happy, so what’s not to love?

Hendery goes through the ties in their makeshift drawer. He runs his fingers over the fabric, watching in the mirror as Dejun hums a cantonese song to himself. It’s a love song. Hendery recognises this because Dejun used to sing it to him whenever he felt happy. But Dejun’s not singing it because of Hendery now, he’s singing it for a woman Hendery knows he’ll never match up to. Because all he can offer Dejun is a half-furnished apartment, takeout for dinner and his own oversized clothes to wear. 

“This one.” Hendery picks out a colour for Dejun’s tie, putting it around his collar and tying it up for him. “She’d like this colour.” Hendery picks his own favourite colour, pink. He doesn’t know if Dejun still remembers this, but he can only hope so as he waves goodbye to the boy who’s waving back at him as the elevator doors close. 

As the hour hand strikes nine, Hendery watches from his apartment window as Dejun links arms with a lady, stepping into a car he knows he’ll never be able to afford. Hendery has never believed in putting a price tag to love. He’s always known love as something that’s quiet and sentimental. Hendery isn’t so sure if love will always be like this, though. 

| | |

Hendery thinks this scene seems like something straight out of a coming-of-age film. This would be the ending scene where two lovers skate off into the sunset with their fingers interlocked. But this isn’t a movie. It’s half past twelve on Christmas day and Dejun is inching forward on his ice skates ever so slowly. The rink isn’t that crowded; people are probably busy celebrating Christmas in the warmth of their homes or having a nice meal in a heated restaurant. Except Dejun and Hendery, who are decked out in long coats, shivering as they make their way across the ice slowly.

The speakers are playing some overly-joyous Christmas tunes Hendery can’t exactly put a finger on, but Dejun is quietly humming along and that alone makes Hendery break out into a smile too. 

Ever since Dejun had knocked on Hendery’s door that night, he finds himself calling that tiny apartment home more and more as each day passes. His girlfriend— if he even wants to call her that— doesn’t seem to care about wherever he is in the world. He’s an entity, at most. He gets ogled at, gets beaten up, then crawls back to Hendery to get patched up again for the fourth time that week. He guesses Hendery must be sick of him coming back to him every other day. He guesses the world should be against him by now after everything he’s been through.

“Dejun!” Hendery scrapes up some ice from the floor of the rink with his foot, packs them into a ball with his palms, then launches it towards Dejun’s back. The older boy straightens up instantly, his thick eyebrows knitting together, making him look like an angry puppy from a cartoon. Hendery laughs. 

“Wait for me,” Dejun skates over as fast as he can (while maintaining his balance) and jabs his fingers into Hendery’s side, sending him into another fit of laughter as they tickle each other like two kids on a playdate. For a moment, Hendery almost loses his balance, and he nearly places his arms on Dejun’s shoulders to stabilise himself, but he holds back instead. His hands fall past Dejun’s shoulders, and onto the railing behind him. 

“Sorry—” Before Hendery can properly balance himself out again, Dejun intertwines both arms and holds onto Hendery’s waist loosely. The younger looks up at him, and he doesn’t know what to think of the predicament they’re in. A thousand what-ifs are festering in Hendery’s mind, and the situation is only made harder for him when he feels Dejun start to lean in closer.

It’s been a long time since Hendery had seen Dejun up-close, in natural lighting. He still has the prettiest lashes and the most goofy smile. It’s a smile Hendery has grown to love, and has never stopped loving, even when they were miles apart both physically and in their hearts. Because it’s so Dejun. It’s so him, and he never wants Dejun to stop smiling if it means getting to watch him bask in happiness all the time.

Dejun leans in even closer, and he can start to feel the warm tendrils of air on his face as Hendery breathes in and out. Just before anything else happens, Hendery takes a tentative step backwards, leaving Dejun to bite on his lower lip softly. Dejun knows Hendery wants this too, but he lets Hendery take a moment to collect his thoughts.

“Just… don’t do anything you’ll regret.” Hendery exhales out. The white puffs of smoke dissolve into nothing in the frigid winter air. 

“I have no regrets.” Dejun lets go of Hendery’s waist and holds up both of his hands instead. He’s wearing woollen gloves, but they still feel awfully cold under his touch. Is this how Hendery felt throughout winter? Has he always felt this cold?

“You have someone to go back to… Jun,” Hendery looks at him with pleading eyes, as if he’s trying to knock some sense into Dejun. “She’s waiting for you.” The last statement comes out in a tone more disappointed than Hendery would have liked for it to sound. 

But it’s true. At the end of the day, Dejun always goes back to her. Hendery can never figure out why, though. 

_ (“Why do you…” Hendery falters. “Why do you hurt yourself, Dejun?”  _

_ Dejun takes a sip from his now-lukewarm latte. It tastes like chemicals and the bitterness is cloaked in a layer of saccharine. It’s a lie, just like he is. “I don’t know.” Dejun admits quietly. He knows that if he drops his sharp edge now, his voice will bottom out completely. There are already tears pricking at the edges and he feels the burn behind his eyes. _

_ “It’s always easier to talk about someone else’s problems.” _

_ “Yeah,” Dejun plays with the lid of his cup, tearing the plastic in the process. Then, “Because I’ve hurt people.” _

_ Hendery has never believed in that statement. He spends every waking day making sure Dejun doesn’t believe in it too.) _

“Have you ever loved her?” 

The coat pitched over Dejun’s shoulders suddenly feels a lot more heavy and suffocating. It’s Burberry, an anniversary gift from his girlfriend some months ago. Dejun doesn’t remember the exact date— he doesn’t remember a lot of things. But now the Tom Ford scarf secured snugly around his neck feels like a vice. And so does the wintry wind blowing past him. And so does everything tangible his girlfriend has ever entrusted into his hands. 

This has to be love, right? She gifts Dejun with a swipe of her black credit card and suddenly everything wrong between them rights itself— but only temporarily. He’s trying really hard to make it love, but it feels more like indebtedness on his part. 

Hendery holds onto both of Dejun’s hands just a little tighter when he senses the older starting to break off. “It’s okay.”

“No.” Dejun’s reply is curt, and it comes out even before Hendery finishes his sentence. For a moment, Hendery wonders if he’s said something wrong, until he connects the dots, and pieces Dejun’s delayed response to the question he’d asked earlier. 

Have you ever loved her?

_ No. No I haven’t. _

Then why stay?

Dejun doesn’t look back up at Hendery. There’s water pooling around his skates; has he been standing here for that long? Dejun can’t see through his watery eyes, and he thinks the tears are falling down to mingle with the melted ice beneath him. 

“Do you still love me, Dejun?” 

“I never stopped.” He raises the heels of his skates off the ground, linking their lips together in a kiss as gentle as a snowflake’s touch. Hendery’s lips feel cold against his own, but the kiss deepens and the air between them grows warm again. 

_ I missed you so much, Heng. _

_ Please take me home. _

**Author's Note:**

> twt: @99DJUNS


End file.
